Chapter 2

"Race ya' back to your place, Ash!" Richie called to me as he began running ahead of me .

"I'll beat you there, Richie!" I called as I began running with him. I ran as fast as my legs could carry me, trying my hardest to beat him. Like, I had to beat him to my house. I just had to! I began to run faster and faster. And the, like, next thing I, like, knew, I was speeding ahead of Richie. I was able to pass him and, like, race into my house. Richie followed behind me.

"HA! I beat you Richie!" I taunted. "WOOT!"

"Congratulations, you beat me." he said while catching his breath. "You deserve a cookie."

"Oh my god, like, can I totally have a, like, cookie?" I begged him.

"Sure. But not right now. We have homework to do, remember?"

Then my mother came into the room. She has short brown hair with brown eyes. And, like, she wears a pink long sleeve top with a knee length blue skirt, and blue boots. She's an awesome mother to me, and my best friend. I would cry if she were to be out of my life for some reason.

"Hello Ash," my mother greeted. "How was school?"

"Same old, same old," I shrugged.

"And greetings, Richie." she greeted him. "How are you?"

"I'm fine, Mrs. Ketchem. How are you?" Richie replied.

"Oh, just great." she smiled. "It's good to see you again. It's been a week since I last saw you."

"Yeah," he smiled back.

"Hey Mom," I began. "Is it alright if Richie stays over for dinner tonight?"

"Hmm...." She thought it over for a moment, then she said, "As long as it's okay with Richie's parents!"

"Oh, it should be fine with them." Richie said. "They don't start worrying till it's eleven o'clock at night."

"Alright, if you say so." Mom said as she left the two of us in the room alone.

"So Richie, let's start on our math homework." I suggested.

"Sure!" He happily agreed.

______

We had been doing our home work for, like, the past half our, and were almost done with our science homework. All we needed to do was to define the definitions of a few words to finish it. We were sitting on the wooden floor of the living room, just right in front of the couch.

"Okay...we need to write a definition for 'red blood cells'." Richie told me while looking at the worksheet in his hands.

I flipped through the textbook and found what I was looking for. "Disk-shaped cells that contains hemo-......hemo-....." I struggled. This was a big word for me.

"Hemoglobin." Richie said the really big word for me.

"Thanks!" I thanked him, then I read on, "Red blood cells provides oxygen to the body, and removes wastes from the body."

"Okay, to make it simple for you to understand, Ash, we basically can put: provides oxygen and removes wastes from the body." he simplified what I read.

We both then wrote that down on our worksheets and then Richie read the last word we had to look up.

"Okay, the last word is 'heart'." He said to me.

As I looked for the word, I was being a goof ball again, "Isn't that supposed to be a shape?"

"Yeah, but that's not the one we're looking for dearest." Richie joked with me, although something about his emphasize with the word 'dearest' was hitting me funny for some reason, like, I felt my heart skip a beat, like I wanted him to call me that. Eh, must be just that I found the word we had to define as he said that.

"Oh here it is!" I chirped. "It says 'A pump-like organ that is located in the chest between the lungs, slightly to the left. Without it, you wouldn't be alive.' Oh my gosh, Richie, is that last part true?"

"Sadly, yes." Richie told me in a serious tone. "Life depends on the heart and the brain to work together. Without either one of them, we'd be screwed. And of course our other organs are important, but our most needed ones are our brain and heart."

"....I'd say the heart is the most confusing organ of our body. It does crazy things to you." Richie began conversation as we finished our homework by writing down the definition to heart.

"Yeah..." I agreed.

"If only it would allow you to tell how you feel about someone so much easier then it is..." Richie continued. "..It's so hard to tell someone your true feelings. Your palms get sweaty, and you feel your knees are unable to support your body anymore."

"Yeah, I know what cha mean, Richie." I confessed. I knew exactly what he meant. I always felt I couldn't confess my true feelings to Starfire. I could only, like, feel them inside. No matter how much I tried to tell her how I felt about her, I'd say something else instead of telling her.

Richie gave a sigh before speaking, "Yeah, sucks when you're in love and can't even tell 'em how you feel."

"Yeah," I admitted. "It does suck."

"You should totally tell her Ash!" He encouraged me.

"B-....but I can't." I blushed of embarrassment. I couldn't. I just, like, couldn't feel like I could get the guts to tell her.

"Okay, I have an idea! I will dress up like Starfire and you will pretend you're going to tell her how you feel. You can practice telling her how you feel with me."

"Alright, as long as it, like, works."

We made a poor attempt at it, but we made our best at making Richie look like Starfire. Luckily my mom had this red wig that looked fairly similar to Starfire's beautiful long hairstyle. And to be quite honest, we couldn't figure out a way to make his eyes look green. That was our only flaw to the look, but we did find a purple top and skirt in my sister's room to use for the outfit part. It didn't look that bad. But it wasn't exactly, like, Starfire's look.

"Okay, you ready Ash?" he asked me as he began pulling down on the skirt he was wearing. I know he hated it cause he thinks it's ridiculous short, but that's how she looks like. She wears a short purple skirt.

"Yeah, I'm, like, ready." I said, then took a deep breath while closing my eyes. I opened them a moment later and tried to make myself believe that this was Starfire I was talking to. "Starfire, I need to tell you something important."

"What is it that you wish to tell me?" Richie replied, trying to mimic a girly voice.

My mind must have really believe this was indeed Starfire cause I got really into it. I started to blush, my hands overtook me and grabbed both Richie's hands, and before I knew it, I got really close to his face.

"Starfire," I began. "We've been friends for a long time. I enjoy every precious moment I'm with you. I love being near you, and I love to see your smiling face all the time. I feel my heart beat at, like, an unhealthy pace, and I just want to hold you close to me. I want to be the one you'll live for, for the rest of your, like, life. Well, what I'm trying to say is-..."

Before I could finish, my annoying twin sister, Ashley interrupted me. "Ash, it's time for dinner! You can stop liking Richie already and get your butt at the dinner table!"

"Wha-....I-...I don't like Richie that, like, way Ashley! You're crazy!" I retorted.

"Sure...sure, that's what they all say..." Ashley said sarcastically while brushing her blond hair out of her face. Her blue eyes were glaring at me, and it put chills down my spine.

"Ashley, leave him alone." Richie stood up for me.

"Be quiet, Richie boy!"

"Richie boy?"

Richie boy? Why'd, like, she call 'em that? ....Wait, what if they're secretly dating and are trying to hide it?! Why would he want to hide it from me though?

"Yeah, you heard me, Richie boy," Ashley said while walking out of the room.

"Ya know, your sister scares me...." He whispered to me.

"I know. She scares me too," I whispered back.

"I heard that!" we heard her voice call from the kitchen.

And with that awkward moment said and done, Richie changed back into his normal clothes and then we went into the kitchen and began eating dinner. For some odd reason, my daddy was staring at Richie funny. He wouldn't take his eyes off of him, like he knew Richie was a troublemaker, although he isn't.

"So," my mom began conversation while we were eating dinner. "Did you two complete your homework, Ash and Richie?"

"Yeah, we, like, finished it a while ago." I told her while stuffing my face with white rice.

"That's good," she smiled.

My daddy continued to stare at Richie with his chocolate brown eyes, but apparently Richie didn't even notice. My daddy is like an older version of me, except he doesn't have freckles on his cheeks like I do. He wears a solid red hat and a black t shirt over a long sleeve gray shirt. His dark blue jeans look almost black, but they're actually a navy blue. Although his raven black hair is messy, his neater than mine.

"Hey Richie, you've never told us about yourself. Why don't cha tell us more about you. You know so much about us while we know nothing about you." Ashley said smirking at Richie.

Richie was about to put a spoon full of rice in his mouth, but paused after she said that. He glanced up and noticed, like, that everyone was staring at him. He was silent for a moment, but then he finally spoke, "Uh....I haven't?"

"No you haven't, Richie." my mom replied.

"Yeah, why don't you tell us a little about yourself." my daddy said in a somewhat serious tone. ...Ya know, that's the first time he's said something so seriously before.

"Um..." due to the fact that I was sitting next to Richie, I could easily heard him gulp nervously, and silently. I was beginning to become confused. Why was, like, Richie acting so nervous about it anyway? I didn't get it. It didn't make much sense to me. He was hiding something. I could, like, sense it.

"Do you, like, have a mommy and a daddy?" I asked sheepishly.

"Yeah, of course I do, Ash. It's just that......" Richie hesitated for a moment, but he went on. "....that-.....that they like to hide from everyone apparently."

I noticed out of the corner of my eye, that my daddy was looking weirdly at Richie. His eyebrow was raised for only a mere moment, but then he went back to somewhat glaring at him again. I seriously was beginning to think my daddy had issues with him or something.

As for my mother, I saw her staring blankly at him. I guess she was speechless or something.

"So Richie, is that an excuse for your parents neglecting you or what?" Ashley smirked again.

"What? Are you crazy!? No way." Richie said kinda fast. Just at how fast he said that made me raise an eyebrow.

My mother apparently decided to change the topic on us. She had turned her attention to Daddy and asked him, "So, how was work, honey?"

"It was fine...." Daddy said in a sigh. "Not perfect as usual, but it was decent for me."

"Did your mean boss make you work your butt off again?" Ashley questioned.

"Unfortunately, yeah," he replied while finishing up his dinner.

While they were continuing the conversation, I was looking at Richie, since he was silent. He seemed to be spazzing out or somethin'. He was moving his food all around his plate, and didn't even take a bite out of anything. I think he was like that after Mom changed the topic.

______

After dinner, Richie and I decided to wash all the dishes for Mom. And the best part was that we were alone. Mom and Daddy were watching TV in their bedroom, and Ashley was taking a shower, so that left me and Richie alone in the kitchen to wash the dishes.

"So....Richie..." I began. "What was up with you at the, like, dinner table? You looked down or somethin'. You okay?"

"Who me? Yeah, I'm fine. Never better." I could tell Richie was lying through his teeth. Although he said he was fine, the look on his face said he wasn't.

"Richie, you're my friend, you can tell me anything. What's up?" I asked while handing him a dish to dry, then grabbing a dirty one and began cleaning it.

"I just don't like talking about my parents..." He said in a sigh while drying the plate I had handed to him.

"You sure that there's nothing going on, Richie?"

"Yeah, I'm sure." he smiled.